Compare war poems Essay

Many terrible things happened in World warfare 1 or the Great War. For me one of the main points were the injustice of it every last(predicate), how the policeman class treated the newfangled ordinary soldiers, mostly from the working class, I have chosen two poems by Siegfried Sassoon which pick up on these themes unspiritual lucubrate and Does It Matter? In both these poems, Sassoon uses sarcasm to lard his feelings of both anger and frustration, and this makes both poems particularly poignant. In Base Details, Sassoon portrays the role of an army commander back at headquarters (the Base), head away from the front line.As soon as you record Base Details you can tell how much Sassoon hates these foot areas, in which the generals lay behind. The sarcasm he uses is so utterly obvious of his crime and he shows this by using a simple rhyming organization as if a ? Even in the title, Sassoon begins his sarcasm by punning on the word Base i. e. describing both the place, but a lso the base behaviour in his view of the tribe there. Sassoon shows his disgust for such people by portraying men who took themselves so seriously, in their bright departure uniformsIf I were fierce Id live with scarlet study , but are in reality pathetic, puffing figures bald, and short of schnorkel What Sassoon particularly hated was how these pompous people sent miserable young men to die at the Front speed glum heroes up the line to death Whilst they were safely tucked away at Base, alimentation and drinking the best of food and wine Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel It was so irritating hearing the patronising words of unselfishness poor young chap, I used to know his father wellAnd of course when the war was over, these officers could return safely and uninjured to England, unlike non-finite millions of ordinary soldiers and other officers And when the war is done and youth stone dead, Id toddle safely home and die in bed. either line drips with sarcasm which powerfully brings out the unfairness of how the war was conducted. This brings me to my hour point, and what happened when the many injured soldiers returned to Britain, which is what is Does it Matter? is about.In this poem, Sassoon deals with soldiers with physical and mental injuries of all sorts. losing your legs losing your sight those dreams from the pit Having returned, people at home tried to be nice and understanding, but really had no appreciation of how these words would be felt as patronising and how it is to feel you are being pitied in this way. Sassoon again uses a form of sarcasm here, although less bitter than in Base Details. In each of the three stanzas of this poem, Sassoon asks with ironyDoes it result? that the soldier had such and such an injury when it clearly matters whether you have deep in thought(p) you legs, or sight or are going out of your see with indescribable nightmares. In each case he paints a moving-picture show of how hurtful and fru strating it was for these soldiers to hear people at home some dismiss their injuries, when they can then happily go about their birth lives in a way that the soldiers cannot when the others come in after hunt down (with legs ) It really was so patronising, even if unintentional, to sayThere is such vivid work for the blind Or And people wont say that youre mad For theyll know that you fought for your country And no one provide worry a bit. It is really like saying there, there to a child. War is always an awful thing, and causes much misery for all concerned. In the above poems about the Great War, Sassoon focused on two aspects, the awful unfairness of how ordinary soldiers were sent to their death by useless and trivial superiors, and the anguish of those who returned injured caused by the patronising pity of those at home.